KEY POINTS:
Someone backed Sufficient to win fresh up at Ellerslie on Saturday.
It wasn't trainer Bruce Wallace and it wasn't stable foreman Allan Peard.
The pair just wanted to see Sufficient get around safely and have a nice race. Winning wasn't really an option in their minds.
It had
been a long road to get to that race for last season's Champagne Stakes winner at Ellerslie.
It started when Wallace sent first Gigino then Sufficient to Sydney for early spring campaigns.
Things started badly then got worse.
Gigino pulled a hamstring in his first Australian start in the Up And Coming Stakes and five days before Sufficient was due to fly out he cut a fetlock.
The joint was treated and bandaged and Wallace said when the horse arrived in Sydney he looked terrific.
""We took the bandage off the joint and it had crusted up nicely," he said.
"I went back to the stables in the afternoon and the leg was so badly swollen you weren't sure he hadn't bowed a tendon. The leg was scanned to make sure it wasn't a tendon, which it wasn't, and it was clear he had a massive infection."
Sufficient ran respectable races in his first two Sydney starts in the Golden Rose and Ming Dynasty Stakes, but started to show a worrying tendency to pull hard in his races, something he never looked like doing in New Zealand.
Four days out from his third start in the Gloaming Stakes he developed a temperature.
"He seemed okay by raceday and we decided to run, which I still see as the right decision."
But afterwards the Zabeel colt was showing pain in his near-side knee.
"He had a spur on the knee and they said they thought there was a partial hairline fracture behind it, but they couldn't see it clear enough on the x-rays.
"They advised us to give him another couple of runs that would most likely work the spur clear and it could then be operated on.
"I wasn't that keen on running a horse as good as we think this bloke is when he's in pain.
"Then I started to realise that the pulling in his races was his reaction to pain.
"I wanted them to operate straight away because the timeline to get to the Derby at Ellerslie was going to be tight and if we waited it was going to be impossible to get him there.
"They said you can't just go in there and chisel the spur away, it's part of his knee. It may not come off."
Against the advice of veterinarians, Wallace insisted that the procedure be performed.
He says it was one of his better days when he received the phone call from Sydney to say the spur had come off.
"The quarantine where he had to do his time was unsuitable because it had yards but no boxes and he had to be boxed because of his op.
"New Zealand Bloodstock was terrific because they found us an alternative property with boxes where he could quarantine."
The $2.2 million Telecom New Zealand Derby on February 28 preparation was not out of the woods yet.
When nominations were taken for Saturday's Ellerslie meeting last Tuesday, Sufficient was No 21 in order of entry into a 1200m race.
Wallace knew if Sufficient didn't run, an already tight Derby timetable would get out of hand. Virtually impossible.
"Allan [Peard] said why not run him in a 1400m race at Te Rapa on Thursday, but I said that was basically a week lost and we didn't have days to spare, let alone a week."
The alternative was the open 1600m that was left open for additional entries because insufficient numbers had been received.
But starting a horse off at 1600m in a new preparation, particularly one that had gone through what Sufficient had endured, was a massive ask.
It was also running him way out of his class.
"In the finish we were out of options, we had to run him.
"We figured the Zabeel factor would help him and James McDonald came up earlier to work him and he said he felt terrific.
"We thought if he settled back and ran on without too much pressure that would be perfect."
Sufficient did exactly that. He sat back and ran on - straight past the opposition.
The way he extended and worked away in the final 50m was the most impressive performance of the day.
It made the flu-ridden Bruce Wallace feel better.
"He left only half a dipper of feed overnight and the fact he's run over 1600m leap-frogs a few things."
There might have been seven or eight months between wins, but Sufficient is out to make up for lost time.